I Went To IKEA Today

and, as always, it was a horrid experience. I go about every two years once I have forgotten how wretched the last trip was. Gee, I got to thinking, IKEA has some of what I need and pretty cheap too. Why don't I just tool over there and ....

Anybody with half a brain would notice the gross of "family parking" places and would guess from the baby carriage graphic on them that "family" does't mean "adult children and their parents." And sure enough the place was packed with urchins, many of whom were wearing Heelys, those trainers with wheels in the heel. Most places in my neighborhood -- pharmacies, grocers, and the like -- have banned the things so my guard was down. Then there were the strollers. Parents with two strollers and a cart are a special kind of unconscious. The man playing with the infant on the big kid bed might have been adorable if the infant wasn't continually baby-barfing on the thing. And there is that general thing that happens nowadays (yeah, my age is showing) where they all think that the fact that they reproduced gives them a special entitlement to treat everybody like shit because their little darling is just the most adorable, special creature in the world.

Why am I going on and on about this you ask? Besides that venting is less likely to land me in prison that some other form of exorcism? Because I want to renew my call for universal birth control. Develop something that is added to all of the water. Has to be colorless and tasteless. Better yet, it would have the side effect of preventing cancer. Then only the nuttiest would complain when they found out.

Then folks need to apply for a license to bear children. To receive a license they would have to demonstrate their ability to train the little darlings and, most important, turn them into socially responsible little beings. I admit that the licenses would probably end up being limited to socially responsible adults, which means that there would be more progressives reproducing, but no so much so that the imbalance would be seriously noticeable.

Fire away. I'm reeling already.